The Ultimate Road Trip Through Wineries, Salt Flats, and Colonial Towns on Argentina's Ruta 40

I’ve spent my working life as bookseller, book marketer, publisher and now author, so it was probably inevitable that I would lean heavily on literature for my book Real Dorset. Luckily for me, writers have frequently turned to Dorset for their inspiration.

Inspired to live life more fully following the death of a friend, New Jersey native Tom Turcich, set himself a goal to see and experience the world on foot.

AirHelp, the online service that files complaints against airlines on behalf of passengers entitled to compensation for air delays or cancellations, knows a thing or two about air travel. Because it’s hard for the average person to understand air passenger rights and pursue a legal claim when they’ve been wronged, AirHelp is always going toe-to-toe with airlines and airports—and reveals once a year which ones that treat their passengers for the better (or worse).

Choosing a destination can be a difficult decision when you’re looking to maximize your travel budget. By choosing a destination with a favorable exchange rate and strong U.S. dollar, you can make the most of every penny spent in 2019.

If you want to stay at the best hotel in the United States, head to the French Quarter Inn in Charleston, South Carolina. And if you’re looking for the best bargain hotel stay in the world, it’s in a small town in northern Spain. That’s according to TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards, which just shared the best hotel ratings for multiple categories heading into 2019.

A solar eclipse is a rare event—not just on Earth, where a total eclipse only occurs in the same location once every century or so, but also in the whole universe. Thanks to the relative size and distances of both the sun and the moon, the fact that we can experience an eclipse at all is a cosmically improbable coincidence. So, if you’re feeling bad for missing a chance to watch 2017’s solar eclipse that spanned across the U.S., I’m here to validate your FOMO.

Ever wish you could Amazon Prime yourself to an exciting new destination? You can’t ship yourself around the world for free (yet) but Amazon is betting that you’ll pay to travel virtually via their new Explore service.

The Puna de Atacama is the high plateau of the Atacama Desert that stretches across northern Chile and Argentina. Last August, during the South American winter, we visited this eerie Mars-like landscape, where volcanoes, sand, and salt mingle. In the middle of the Puna sits one of Argentina’s highest villages, Tolar Grande, with an elevation of 11,500 feet. Surrounding it are some of the tallest peaks in the Andes, many soaring well over 20,000 feet high. We stayed in the village for a few days, experiencing how hard it is to live at high altitudes, in such a desolate and remote location.

At the southernmost tip of South America is the region of Patagonia, spread between Chile and part of Argentina. The region is one of the most extreme on earth, with huge mountains, rushing rivers, massive glaciers, rare wildlife, and the remnants of volcanos so tall they’re often shrouded in weather patterns different from those at the base. It’s extremely undeveloped and wild, thanks to federal protections from the two countries.

Argentines are a superstitious lot — many taxi-drivers religiously garland their rear-view mirrors with rosaries; fur-clad ladies-that-lunch avidly read their horoscopes; busmen faithfully display images of the Virgin of Luján over their dashboards; nearly everyone routinely tucks a banknote under their plate of gnocchi at the end of each month in the hope of better financial fortunes. But all this pales in comparison to their fervent dedication to the people’s saint, Antonio Gil – better known as the Gauchito Gil.

A year out was once the preserve of 18-year-olds seeking direction in life but today things have changed. Forget spending 12 months in a haze of alcohol, harem trousers and sunburn. Travel in your late 20s and early 30s is now an acceptable, and often far more rewarding, time to explore the world.

Just outside Buenos Aires, Argentina is one of South America ’s most unexpected landscapes – the Paraná Delta. Part of the continent’s second largest river system, it is accessed via a Victorian-style toy train and the town of Tigre, an idiosyncratic cross between England’s Henley-on-Thames and Italy’s Venice.